


Go home, plant your trees (for I love you so)

by beetlejuice



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Forgive me Thorin, I'm so sorry, M/M, So much angst, acorns man, fucking acorns, i made myself cry while writing this, omg the angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 09:17:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2845823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetlejuice/pseuds/beetlejuice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bilbo dies. Thorin lives and in time learns to carry on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Go home, plant your trees (for I love you so)

**Author's Note:**

> So...I've had this idea in my head for about a week now, and...yeah. 
> 
> I am so sorry.
> 
> Edit: Ok, I think I found all the typos. If anyone spots anymore please let me know. And thank you so much for all the comments and kudos they mean so much to me. You're all lovely!

The sharp bite of the ice cut through his leather and fur, numbing his knees as he sank down onto the frozen river. His fingers trembled and his eyes burned with tears as he pulled Bilbo (his stupidly, brave hobbit—and what in Mahal’s name was he doing here) gently, _so_ gently into his battered arms. Hot blood fled from his small, trembling body falling onto the ice like scarlet raindrops, a stark blot of color against a pale landscape.

 

Thorin opened his mouth to speak, but a whimper, full of pleading and pain was all that escaped his chapped, broken lips. He swallowed, and tried again, his voice but a whisper. “Bilbo,” the howling wind seemed to die down in deference as he spoke. “Bilbo,” he repeated, “you’re going to be ok.” He knew it was a lie the moment the words had left his mouth and they sat like ice in his stomach.

 

Bilbo (wonderful, selfless Bilbo) tried to pull his lips into a smile, broken and thin. His eyes fluttered as he struggled to keep them open. “T…Thorin,” his name was a mere whisper, reedy and choking as the hobbit pushed the syllables out. Bilbo’s smile gained a little more strength, “You—you’re ok.” And Thorin’s heart broke a little more in his chest and he cursed his weakness, the lust for gold that poisoned his blood that had brought the line of Durin so low.

 

“Yes,” he choked out at least, not feeling shamed in the least as his tears finally fell, “thanks to you, my dear Bilbo.” He could still see how Bilbo had rushed the pale orc as Azog had kneeled above him, his blade inches from his chest. If the hobbit had been but a few moments late it would be Thorin lying bleeding and dying and the hobbit—Bilbo would be in his place. Alive.

 

How Thorin wished that Bilbo would’ve been but a few moments late. _He_ deserved to die; it should be _him_ lying there with blood choking his lungs and death hanging over him. Not, not Bilbo, this child of the kindly West who charmed everyone he met, even grim, bitter dwarf kings who had no interest in trusting or even liking outsiders, but Bilbo had done it just the same.

 

A sob caught in his throat. “I’m sorry for my words and deeds at the gate,” he was, he was _so_ sorry. He should’ve never set his eyes on that accursed treasure. He would let Smaug, the men, even the bloody elves take every last coin, and empty the treasury until only stone and dust remained if only Bilbo would live. “I’m sorry for leading you into such peril,” his voice broke at the end and he knew he must be a sight, his eyes red and swollen from his tears and his deep voice cracking in his despair.

 

He wasn’t much of a king, he thought to himself bitterly. Perhaps he never had been.

 

Bilbo’s chest heaved with every pained breath, and blood bubbled up from his mouth as he tried to find words for the grieving dwarf king, but Thorin was quick to shush him, cradling him closer as he pressed his forehead ever so gently against the hobbit’s. “Hush Bilbo, do not try to speak. Save, save your strength,” he whispered brokenly.

 

Bilbo, of course did not heed him. “Nothing…nothing to forgive my king. T—to share in your perils is more than any Baggins deserves.”

 

Closing his eyes, Thorin watched Bilbo grimace as he raised his hand towards Thorin, his trembling, bloodstained fingers wrapped around something. Thorin rushed to catch the wavering hand in his own, holding it against his chest. Those blue eyes softly pulled themselves open again and Thorin was reminded of a soft, summer sky or of bright, blue flowers happily waving at him from the soft earth. Not sapphire, _never_ sapphire; Bilbo’s eyes are too warm and full of life to be compared to a cold, shining rock.

 

“Here,” Bilbo swallowed around the word, and pressed his small hand more urgently into the dwarf king’s armored chest. “I—w-will you plant it for me?”

 

The stuttered, gasping question gutted the king and he felt his heart fall somewhere around his knees. He took a breath, and then another before he finally pulled Bilbo’s fingers gently apart. And there sitting peacefully in his palm, free of any damage or blood sat an acorn; small, fragile, and most importantly undamaged.

 

Thorin desperately wanted to close Bilbo’s fingers around the acorn once more, tell him to live so he can plant it himself and watch his tree grow in peace, but he could not bring himself to be so selfish or cruel, not when Bilbo is the one who has paid the most bitter price to see their venture end successfully. Instead he carefully plucks the acorn from Bilbo and places it securely in his pocket, and with such reverence his fellow dwarves would believe he was handling the very Arkenstone itself (he was more likely to throw the accursed stone into the lake to rot with Smaug at this point rather than ever so much as look at it again).

 

“I will,” he answered solemnly. He would plead with Thranduil himself to make sure he planted it properly, and that it would grow.

 

A smile, soft and bright lit up Bilbo’s bruised and bloodied face and Thorin felt his heart beat a little easier at the sight of it. “You—you’ll be a great king,” Bilbo said at last.

 

“How can you be so sure,” his voice was choked and wet, and he already had half a mind to surrender his crown to Fíli before they had crashed the gates down to charge into battle. His two nephews would never fall into such wretchedness as he had, for they had each other, and their hearts had always been stronger. They had never been afraid to love.

 

Bilbo just continued to smile at him, his eyes full of warmth and faith as he pressed his trembling hand to Thorin’s cheek. “I have great faith in you Thorin Oakenshield. You, you are greater than you know.”

 

Thorin shook his head, “Not—not without you.”

 

Bilbo only managed to shake his head as his hand faltered and began to fall. Thorin quickly caught it, pressing Bilbo’s fading warmth to his hollowed cheek.

 

There they sat on the ice, the frozen river roaring quietly beneath their feet. Thorin lowered his head resting it softly against Bilbo’s forehead, their breaths mingling together in the frozen air as the silence echoed all around them. The cries of the battle seemed too far away and Thorin’s heart was too consumed by grief to hear anything over the crying of his own heart.

 

It was, however, a different cry that cut through his grief, and his eyes snapped open as the screech of the great eagles broke through the dark sky. He watched them soar above them and dive into the fray, unafraid of the arrows and spears that flew towards them.

 

Victory was theirs. The knowledge came to him swiftly and with it hope; returning his gaze to Bilbo a desperate smile cutting across his face, “Bilbo, Bilbo the eagles! The eagles have come, and—” he stopped, the words dying on his tongue. “Bilbo?” He whispered the name softly, and squeezed the small, cold hand in his grip. Cold. His heart stuttered in his chest. The hobbit’s entire body had gone cold and still.

 

A manic desperation welled up inside his breast where he felt what was left of his shattered heart wither away, turning as cold with despair as the body in his arms. “No, no, no Bilbo you have to stay with me. Bilbo _please_ ,” he cut himself off, a sob breaking through his shattered restraint.

 

“No,” he croaked through his tears, cradling and rocking his dear, dear hobbit in his arms. “Sorry,” he whispered, “I’m _so_ sorry.”

 

Only vaguely was he aware of the Company circling around him, and one-by-one fell to their knees on the ice in their sorrow, bowing to their fourteenth member. Their lucky number.

 

Their victory had turned out to be a hollow one indeed.

 

 

 

Something had broken within Thorin Oakenshield on that day, his face was lined with grief and his broad shoulders seemed to tremble at times as though he carried the weight of the very world on his shoulders. But none could deny that he wore the crown well, the gold did not seem to call to him as it did to his forbearers, in fact he seemed eager to give it away, looking upon the treasury with a weary distaste.

 

The Arkenstone was lost or so the people or Erebor whispered. In truth the stone, full of cold, corrupted light had been destroyed and the Company of Thorin Oakenshield bore this truth with a tired, grim satisfaction.

 

A year passed, and then another and all too soon winter was fading from the land and the dragon’s rot and decay was slowly lifting from the mountain. Outside the gates of Erebor Thorin, stripped of his crown and fur coat watched the hills slowly return to life, and dancing inside his fingers was one small acorn.

 

Thorin could’ve asked for Tauriel’s knowledge on the matter, for she was more often than not seen in Erebor than in Mirkwood these days. Thorin thinks Bilbo would be proud of how he had welcomed her, when Kíli blushing and stuttering, but still defiant as he told his uncle of how he wished to court Tauriel, of how he she was his _One_. He had surprised them all by not only allowing it, but also blessing their union saying he looked forward to day she became apart of their family.

 

Bilbo would’ve been proud.

 

And she had more than proven her love and loyalty when she had sat for weeks beside Kíli’s sick bed, refusing to be torn from his side.

 

But no, Thorin promised Bilbo he would become a great king, and that meant letting go of old, useless grudges. He called for Thranduil.

 

There was certainly no love loss between the two of them, but Tauriel and Kíli had forced them to become at least civil with one another. Although in the first few months of rebuilding and tying together alliances Thorin had been to tired and sick with grief to muster up any of the old righteous anger against Thranduil and the elves in general used to inspire in him. In those new, fumbling days when the ground was still freshly turned from the graves they had dug, Thranduil had looked upon him with a deep, solemn understanding that had darkened his eyes.

 

It hadn’t been pity, but it had left the dwarf king grinding his teeth all the same.

 

 

 

They met on the slopes of Erebor, both devoid of the crown and robes that declared them king.

 

“Thorin,” Thranduil tilted his head at him, patient and waiting.

 

Thorin breathed and his chest ached as though his heart was being split apart at the seams. Could he even bare to part with this small acorn, the last thing his beloved hobbit had pressed into his hands before he had died? It soothed the fires of his anger whenever his council of nobles began try his patience, and in the long nights with a bed far too big for just one, the acorn was a small comfort in and of itself. How could he possibly bear to part with it?

 

But …

 

_“Plant it for me.”_

 

Bilbo had asked him to plant it, to watch it grow. The wound in his heart seemed to be soothed at the thought, and he pulled the acorn from his pocket. He took a breath, and then another.

 

He swallowed thickly feeling his eyes burn, but he blinked the tears away. He held up his hand, the acorn sitting in his palm.

 

“Help me plant it,” It wasn’t a plea, but his voice was still thick with tears and a part of him cursed himself for showing such weakness in front of an elf.

 

Then Thranduil did something he would’ve never had imagined witnessing in any lifetime. The ancient elf king stared long and hard at the small seedling before briefly glancing up to look at the dwarf king asking for his aid in such a small thing, and finally a small, fleeting and fractured smile pressed itself upon the elf king’s lips.

 

Thranduil _bowed_ , long and deep his hand upon his breast. “I would be honored.”

 

There was no feeling of smugness nor bitter righteousness, instead it felt a lot like forgiveness.

 

 

 

Years passed into decades until decades faded into a centaury. Peace reigned, and King Thorin II Oakenshield had passed his three-hundredth year before leaving the throne to Fíli. He was old now and their Company now numbered only eleven with the loss of Óin and Balin. Tauriel and Kíli had long since wed and their daughter was much beloved in all three kingdoms of dwarf, man, and elf. Fíli too had a wife at his side, who in Thorin’s humble opinion could run Erebor quite efficiently by herself if she had a mind to.

 

Thorin, however, was rarely seen now outside of his garden, often resting under the great boughs of an ancient oak. Flowers grew around it, their colorful faces turned towards the warm rays of the sun.

 

On this day Thorin was resting between two great roots, the boughs of the great oak creaking softly in the gentle wind.

 

“—Little spitfire she is, Kíli and Tauriel’s daughter! She runs wild through Erebor, not to mention Dale and the Greenwood—(I believe I told you about Mirkwood’s recovery), why just the other week her and her cousins had drank a good portion of the ale for a celebration, and then tried to ride off into the woods to escape their punishment! Of course it would’ve worked out better if they hadn’t proceeded to fall off their mounts before they were even out of Erebor,” Thorin’s deep laugh rumbled through his chest and he finished his tale, patting the old root by his side.

 

“Now, now don’t fret Bilbo, I’ve plenty more stories of our families antics, but I’m afraid they’ll have to wait,” Thorin said, pausing as let out a deep breath. “I am getting quite tired in my old age. I think I’ll be seeing you soon my dear Bilbo.”

 

Thorin sighed happily, settling more deeply into the oak’s sturdy trunk. His blue eyes, blazing and fierce seemed to soften and the cold grip of grief that he had carried with him like a cloak seemed to lift. He was gray now, his once raven black hair now a sharp silver, with wisps of pure white peering out. He was old and wrinkled, but he could still swing a sword and lift Fíli’s youngest high in his arms with nary a problem. He was still _Thorin_ , strong, stubborn and true.

 

“You would be proud beloved,” the endearment slipped out often now, as though he couldn’t help himself. “Peace reigns, and our people know comfort. We have our armchairs and our books; we smoke good pipe weed and sing of happy things. Oh Bilbo,” his voice cracked at the name, “how I wish you could’ve seen this.”

 

A soft gale danced through and above him the leaves of the ancient oak danced with it, whispering soft, happy things and Thorin let sleep pull him gently under.

 

(In the distance he could hear Bilbo greeting him softly, a great oak tree sitting behind him, its boughs reaching into the blue, blue sky, and Thorin at long last felt at peace).


End file.
